you can see what al gore thinks? a remarkable ability indeed! do you write for the NYT op-ed page?

i may be desperate, but a month from now i'll be hopeful, and you, madam, will still be ugly.

in accepting his emmy for current tv (and receiving the biggest ovation of the night), al gore may have indicated that he's running for president! did anybody else pick up on this?

gore: "we are trying to open up the television medium, so that viewers can help to make television, and join the conversation of democracy and reclaim american democracy by talking about the choices we have to make. more to come, current.com next month."

he can't follow "reclaim american democracy by talking about the choices we have to make" with "more to come, current.com next month" and not expect desperate people like me to take it a certain way. exciting stuff!

Gore has my vote if he runs. If he endorses a candidate, that candidate jumps to the top of my list (since I'm not particularly thrilled with any of them). And I can't be the only one thinking that way. So although I agree that endorsements are often meaningless, I'm not sure Gore's endorsement in particular is as insignificant as your post suggests. The guy's got a large and passionate fan club that values his judgement very highly.

Dodd's been excellent this whole campaign, and is easily my favorite of the announced candidates. Did a nice job on O'Reilly, glad to see he's turning some heads in his direction.

Senator Dodd's been one of the nice surprises of the campaign so far. From his focus on restoring civil liberties and ending the war, to his embrace of new technology and open politics, he's been making the party look good while attempting to keep the more well-financed candidates honest. I'm not a Dodd partisan (I refuse to commit to a candidate until Gore makes his intentions clear), but he deserves more attention than he's been getting and would probably make an excellent president.

I'd go with Edwards if I had to since he's the only media candidate to challenge the disastrous "War on Terror" framework, but Gore's in another league entirely. Not only is he excellent on the issues, he's become an icon, a national treasure, a symbol of what's good about our country to the rest of the world.

Seeing the people who hate him, and the vehemence of their hatred, indicates to me that he is truly feared by opponents of progressive change.

So I'm with Jerome. Let the wind blow!

I see a lot of TR in Gore these days.

"We're fighting in a war we lost before the war began" - Phil Ochs, in a song from '68

Speaking as a 2000 Naderite (a scarlet letter I'll deservedly wear to my grave), I can appreciate the dangers of rigid idealism. We need to maintain the "understanding," at least through the election. After all, you go to Washington with the party you have, not the party you might want.

We believe this country must forcefully combat global warming, but we also believe that nuclear energy must be an important part of that mix

If a comprehensive climate change policy is put forward that doesn't depend on new nuclear plants, would you oppose it? In other words, do you support the best solution to global warming, or the best solution to global warming that includes an expanded role for nuclear power? Maybe it's just a poorly-worded sentence, but it seems to imply that you're more concerned with promoting nuclear power than with combating global warming.

I agree with everything in your post. It's up to us to persuade him.

Actually, if I had a higher IQ I'd be able to effectively communicate sarcasm on a message board, so allow me to follow your lead and amend my post with a " ;) "

And I've never taken an IQ test, but I do think the president should be smarter than the average bear, so to speak.

A political scientist friend of mine sent me an article yesterday that attempts to estimate the IQ of 42 of the 43 Presidents of the United States.

43 presidencies, but only 42 presidents, because Grover Cleveland served two nonconsecutive terms. I know this because I have an extremely high IQ.

I assumed Matt was referring to FDR as the liberal who ushered in the age of the imperial presidency. I agree that Clinton was a good president in context of the modern presidency, although he also presided over the full collapse of our civic discourse, which was and is a national tragedy.